KONPIRA CONSULTING - Key Persons
Kirk Patterson, the founder of Konpira Consulting, is a Canadian who has lived in Japan for over 30 years and can speak and read Japanese fluently. After 25 years working in senior management positions in Tokyo, he retired to pursue his long-held dream of becoming an offshore sailor (despite having zero sailing experience). Returning to Canada, he bought a 40' steel cutter - Silk Purse - and spent four years learning to sail by cruising the BC/Alaska coast, always solo.
Learning that no foreigner had ever done a full circumnavigation of Japan, Kirk decided to attempt that before heading to the south Pacific and then perhaps around the world. In 2012, he sailed from Victoria, B.C., to Honolulu, where the threat of typhoons forced him to wait 11 months before continuing on to Japan (and so became a Waikiki bartender to top up the cruising kitty). He reached Japan the following year and then spent three years circumnavigating the entire archipelago.
Kirk quickly realized that Japan is a fantastic cruising ground - many positives and very few negatives. But it is virtually unknown to foreign cruisers. So, after the circumnavigation, he decided to stay a bit longer to write a Japan cruising guide before continuing on to other parts of the world.
As the expression goes, though, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans." Kirk met a lovely woman at a marina in Fukuoka, got married, and decided to live permanently in Japan. He continued to cruise Japan, gathering information for the cruising guide, and then "swallowed the anchor" in 2019 to focus full-time on Konpira Consulting.